Having spent the evening tidying and cleaning and putting stuff in drawers and cupboards to try to achieve a ' decluttered look ' I started pondering the significance of our homes. It would appear that from as far back as anyone knows about, mankind has felt the need to customise and personalise, decorate and modify the place in which he/she lives. Some of the greatest discoveries of archaeology are those stone age round houses, roman villas, pyramids full of household artefacts. They demonstrate that from the earliest times we have filled our homes with furniture and decorative tiles, wall paintings and fabrics. Not just utilitarian objects, but decorated plates and bowls, intricately carved spoons and knives, embroidered clothing and breathtakingly complex jewellery. I wonder why we enjoy surrounding ourselves with 'stuff' and why we spend money and effort on making our homes such personal spaces. I am acutely aware that later today some complete strangers will be walking around my home, looking at the way I have decorated it, the furniture we have chosen for it, the colour of the carpets and the lurid lime green toilet seat in the shower room ( Keiths choice 😉 ) and deciding if they would like to live here and if so, how much they would have to change before they could move in and be comfortable. Because my taste is not likely to be theirs.
I think there are a couple of things going on in our homes. Firstly our home is a place where we can relax and feel safe. We can choose whether or not to let people in to our houses. A house is warm and solid and should be comforting and dependable. If we spring a leak or our roof blows off or we suffer a fire or a burglary we feel that more than bricks and mortar have been affected. We feel personally assaulted in some way. As though our house is somehow an extension of our very being.
And then there is the element of self expression which a home allows us. Even if we dont consider ourselves to be in the least bit artistic or creative we all have tastes and an individual style which we bring to our homes as we decorate and furnish them. We might be ultra minimal, or hoarders of ' stuff'. Perhaps we are black and white and chrome people. Or maybe we like to live in a riot of colour and texture and fluff. Nowadays you can go house hunting on the internet from the comfort of your laptop and see inside all sorts of houses at a whim. I find it fascinating. Most houses are pretty similar in construction and layout. But the people who live in them are more diverse and multi-faceted than you could believe possible.
I think there is probably a longing in all human beings to have a ' home'. To be safe, protected, have somewhere to relax and be vulnerable, a place to express some creativity. I suspect that when we get to heaven all those longings will be perfectly satisfied. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us - so I guess that means that when we move in it will be HIS taste and style we will be moving into. Somehow I imagine He has impeccable design credentials and will know exactly what each of us needs to feel perfectly eternally at home. Or maybe we shall feel so safe, relaxed and protected in His presence and so bursting with praise and dance and poetry and art and all manner of creative expressions of worship that our mansions will cease to hold any importance for us at all. We will be at home because we will be with Him. And home is where the heart is.
No comments:
Post a Comment